The other day Pope Benedict XVI reiterated official church teaching that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, that the Orthodox Church is defective, and that Protestant churches are not true churches. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two documents holding that that "ecclesial communities originating from the Reformation [i.e. Protestant congregations] are … not churches in the proper sense of the word." Some Protestants have taken offense. Not me.

I would have been far more worked up if Benedict had said (to borrow a phrase from Khan in Star Trek II) that we are all just "one big, happy fleet." You were expecting him to endorse Willow Creek? He is the pope, after all.

In this age of mushy moral equivalence, I think drawing some bright lines is helpful (even if I disagree with where the pope drew them). While Catholics and Protestants agree on many key areas of doctrine (such as the deity of Christ), we differ on other vital matters of faith (such ...

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